Ministry of Defence12.7.2018 10.54| Published in English on 12.7.2018 at 12.50Press release

Finland is to join NATO's Memorandum of Understanding on Multinational Land Battle Decisive Munition (LBDM). Sixteen NATO defence ministers and Macedonia's Minister of Defence signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Brussels on 12 July 2018 while Minister of Defence Jussi Niinistö will sign the MoU at a later stage. In addition to Finland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain are joining the cooperation arrangement.

Based on the MoU, a working group was set up with the task to inform of the participating countries' future munition acquisition, to jointly acquire munition and to improve munition related life cycle cooperation. The Army Command and the Defence Forces Logistics Establishment will nominate Finland's representative to the working group. In addition to possibly lower costs per unit and joint acquisition, participation will support the capabilities development of the Finnish Defence Forces also because of access to further information on the material.

All cooperation regarding joint acquisition and other projects will be agreed on separately and therefore joining the arrangement does not bring direct costs. The MoU is a technical document by nature and therefore it will be signed by Finland's Ministry of Defence.